Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

LONDON, Julie

(b 26 September 1926, Santa Rosa CA; d 18 October 2000, Los Angeles) Singer, actress. She sang as a teenager with a band on West Coast; her sultry looks won a film contract and roles in low-budget epics from '44 (e.g. Jungle Girl). She was married to Jack Webb 1945-53 (actor, director, producer Webb b 2 April 1920, Santa Monica, d 23 December 1982, was the star of Dragnet cop show on radio and TV, star and producer of movie Pete Kelly's Blues '55); then to pianist-songwriter-actor Bobby Troup (see his entry) who got her a contract with the new Liberty label: LPs were successful '55 into '60s; the first Julie Is Her Name had laid-back delivery of romantic songs accompanied only by Barney Kessel on guitar, Ray Leatherwood on bass (b 24 April 1914, Itasca TX): the no. 2 LP included top ten single 'Cry Me A River', used for amusing scene in The Girl Can't Help It '56, the best rock'n'roll movie ever made (title song written by Troup). The LP's reissue decades later, with the original, conventionally sexist sleeve pic featuring the bare shoulders of a maturely attractive woman, was refreshing at a time when pop music seemed to be dominated by anorexic or barely pubescent teenagers. Lonely Girl and Calendar Girl (all songs with names of the months in them: 'I'll Remember April', 'Memphis In June', etc), About The Blues (with Russ Garcia orchestra) were top 20 '56-7; others were Julie, London By Night, Make Love To Me, Swing Me An Old Song and Julie At Home (both with Jimmy Rowles) etc. She appeared in Anthony Mann's western Man Of The West '68; Troupe played Tommy Dorsey in The Gene Krupa Story '59; Troupe and London starred in TV series Emergency '70s, produced by Webb. An EMI CD combined the first album and Julie Is Her Name Vol. 2.